Please open Cortez Beach bathrooms now

Tuesday

Apr 11, 2017 at 12:01 AM

I am a crazy displaced northerner who loves to swim in the lakes from April to October.I called the recreation department on April 4 to ask when the Cortez Beach bathrooms would be open, as I had swum two days already. The response was “April 15. It is still cold.” Hardly a chance of frost in our forecast to freeze the pipes. Next, I was told “no, it will be May 1 because we are worried about vandalism, and on the weekends we don’t have a person hired until May 1.” I hardly think the garbage pickup guy will control vandalism for the five minutes he is there. How about cameras video in the area? How about more frequent police car drive-bys? We protect out beach when we are there. So fear is driving the bathrooms from being opened? Or is that a POA administration “just the way we always have done it?”Last year, we had been swimming for six weeks before the bathrooms were opened, after Mother’s Day and barely before Memorial Day. This year was a very mild winter. The water temperature was 70 degrees last Tuesday and the air temperature was 82 degrees.We are swimming. We are using the beach.Open the bathrooms.